Trump Fired Highest-Ranking Woman in Military at His Ball
President Donald Trump fired the highest-ranking woman in the military while at a ball celebrating his role as commander in chief.
The Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Linda L. Fagan, was the first female uniformed leader of a branch of the armed forces.
Fagan learned she had been fired while waiting to take a photo with Trump at the Commander in Chief Ball on Inauguration Day, The New York Times reported.
Among the reasons Fagan was fired was because of an “excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion,” the Homeland Security Department said in a statement.
The DHS also said Fagan’s “failure to address border security threats” and the Coast Guard’s long-standing recruitment issues were reasons for her termination.
The DHS also faulted Fagan for her handling of the investigation into Coast Guard Academy’s sexual assault allegations, also known as Operation Fouled Anchor, which reviewed reports of assaults from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
Fagan’s firing sent shockwaves through the Coast Guard. Former Commandant Admiral Thad Allen criticized the decision in a statement to Homeland Security Today.
“Her dismissal is not a matter of her performance. It is political performance. One that should cause great concern for current and future military leaders,” he said.
Two other high ranking former Coast Guard officials, Master Chief Petty Officer Charles Bowen and Master Chief Vincent Patton, spoke out in Fagan’s defense.
“Admiral Fagan’s firing is wrong. There is no other way to say it. She is an honorable officer who has given her entire life to the Coast Guard and this is the wrong way for the new administration to end her career,” they said in a statement.
The two, who added that they worked with Fagan over her 40-year career, said Fagan inherited the DHS’s cited problems, and she “positively impacted current effort” to improve the service.
Fagan graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1985, part of the sixth graduating class that included women. She has served as commandant of the Coast Guard since 2022.
Fagan’s firing is part of Trump’s broader shakeup of the military. His nominee for the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, previously said that women should not serve in combat roles. Of the 1.3 million active service members in the military, 230,000 are women.
Trump also signed an executive order ending DEI initiatives within the federal government on his first day in office.
